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Sunday, 30 September 2012

Holy Motors must
be the strangest, maddest and most bizarre film I’ve seen since at least Love Exposure and possibly ever. In a
statement about the nature of both acting and the digitalisation of the world,
Leos Carax’s film stars Denis Lavant as a man who travels through Paris in a
white limousine that is driven by Edith Scob. Along the way he stops for
various ‘appointments’ for which he adopts an entirely different character
complete with makeup, mannerisms and speech. Throughout the course of the day
he becomes a beggar woman, motion capture artist, assassin, disappointed father
plus many more.

The film’s message or statement is open for interpretation
and after telling my girlfriend what I though I asked her the same, to which
she replied “I thought it was about weird stuff”. The film is enjoyable however
you view it and whether or not you read into any hidden messages or not. The
themes that I personally believe the film is tackling may be totally different
to the person next to me but it doesn’t matter. Holy Motors is a thrilling, darkly comic and bonkers film that is
worth tracking down.

Charlie Chaplin as his Tramp character is asleep outside a Mission, close to the
danger filled and lawless Easy Street. After being partially reformed by the Mission where he meets a
beautiful young woman (Edna Purviance), the Tramp decides to join the Police
and is immediately sent out on the beat to Easy Street, a road from where
Police return battered and bruised. Through luck and wit the new Policeman
tries to reform the street and return it to the local residents.

Comedy wise this is probably the most disappointing of
Chaplin’s Mutual Films that I’ve seen so far. In the entire film I only laughed
out loud once and generally there were very few funny moments anywhere. What the
film does contain though is another tender story about overcoming the odds,
hard work, temperance and love which is something that Chaplin was becoming the
master of at this stage of his career.

Saturday, 29 September 2012

Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) is a man who suffers from
anterograde amnesia from a knock to the head on the same night that his wife
was killed. The affliction means that although he can remember things from
before that night, he is unable to store any new information for more than just
a couple of minutes. His lack of short term memory causes huge problems for
Leonard, especially as he is in the middle of a man hunt to track down his wife’s
killer. In his pursuit Leonard is aided or hindered (he’s not quite sure) by a
man named Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) and a woman called Natalie (Carri-Anne Moss).
All Leonard has to rely on are photos with notes written by himself and tattoos
drawn all over his body which point to clues and reminders.

I shouldn’t be surprised that Memento is completely mad, difficult to follow and ingenious all at
once as Director Christopher Nolan has since followed it up with the likes of Inception as well as his multi-billion
dollar Dark Knightfranchise. As
twisted and confusing as Inception was
though it has nothing on Memento which
is presented in two separate but ultimately converging narratives. The first is
filmed in black and white and is presented in a traditional linear way with
scene following scene until the finale. The second and certainly more unique
narrative strand is in colour and opens with the film’s finale before working
its way back to the opening. The result is an incredibly complex and often
frustrating plot which can leave you with more questions than answers.

Friday, 28 September 2012

Produced by go to comedy guy Judd Apatow and written by lead
actor Jason Segel, Forgetting Sarah
Marshall is a comedy that I was never in much of a rush to see. I vaguely remember
it being around in 2008 but it didn’t entice me to the cinema. I’ve since
become more familiar with Segel’s films and when someone at work offered to
lend me the DVD I thought why not? I’m glad I did borrow it as it’s a
remarkable romantic comedy that completely surprised me with its extremely
funny script, well drawn characters and endearing storyline.

Peter Bretter (Jason Segel) is a fairly successful TV
Composer who is in a five year relationship with the actress Sarah Marshall (Kristen
Bell). One day and almost out of the blue Sarah tells Peter that she is ending
their relationship and leaves him. Depressed and heartbroken Peter decides to
go away for a few days and heads to Hawaii
where, yup, you’ve guessed it, Sarah is also staying with her new rock star
boyfriend Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Feeling even more depressed than he was
back in L.A, Peter attempts to at least try and forget Sarah and is helped by
the hotel staff which includes the attractive concierge Rachel (Mila Kunis).

Thursday, 27 September 2012

After a case of mistaken identity Jeff ‘The Dude’ Lebowski
(Jeff Bridges), an unemployed Los
Angeles based slacker seeks out his millionaire
namesake in order to complain about the mistreatment he received by mistake.
The meeting is followed the next day by a call from the millionaire saying that
his young, trophy wife has been kidnapped and he wants The Dude to be the
bagman; delivering the money to the kidnappers. This sets off a chain of events
which leaves The Dude bewildered and confused and all on the eve of his bowling
league semi-finals.

The Big Lebowski is
one of the hundreds of films which I’ve wanted to see for a long time and I’m
happy I’ve finally sat down to watch it. I’m a fan of the Coen brothers’ work
having really enjoyed seven of the eight of their films I’ve seen previously.
This is most definitely joining those other seven and avoids being plonked in
the bargain bin next to The Ladykillers.
It’s packed full of great Coen dialogue and fantastical situations, all bought
together with a great cast who are all on sparkling form.

Wednesday, 26 September 2012

A few months ago I took part in a blogathon/questionnaire type
thing in which one of the questions was ‘Which ten classic movies haven’t you
seen?’ Among my answers were the likes of Citizen
Cane, Casablanca
and North by Northwest (which I’ve
since seen) but by far the biggest response to this question came from people
who couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen The
Lion King. So when a friend at work (who was equally shocked) offered to
lend me a shiny Blu-Ray copy I had to take it and give it a go.

Mixing a coming of age story, Hamlet, Bambi, parts of
Genesis (the ridiculous stories, not band) and anthropomorphic animals, The
Lion King is about a young Lion called Simba who was set to ascend the throne
after the death of his father but was halted by his evil Uncle Scar. Wandering
for years in the wilderness he learns about the world with the help of a
Warthog named Pumbaa and a Meerkat called Timon before rising to the challenge
of deposing his wicked Uncle.

As soon as I hear the opening notes of John Williams’ iconic
Jurassic Park score I can’t help but
smile and be transported back to the mid 1990s and to a time when Jurassic Park was pretty much all the
boys my age would talk and think about. I experienced the Jurassic Park
smile recently when I re-watched the sequel to the 1993 film for what must be
at least the eighth time. The smile stuck with me for the opening hour and a
half as I reminisced about when I’d first seen the film and remembered what was
coming next. Some of the things that made this sequel good are still evident
but unfortunately so are the aspects that made it bad.

Four years on from the Jurassic Park Incident as it is now
know, John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) is assembling a team to explore, catalogue
and protect the Dinosaur inhabitants of a second island, close to the original
known as Site B. For this mission he recruits a reluctant Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff
Goldblum), a man who has been publicly and academically chastised for talking
about the Jurassic Park Incident. Malcolm is understandably hesitant about
mixing with Dinosaurs again until he learns that his girlfriend Sarah Harding
(Julianne Moore) is already on the island. So, he travels to the island along
with equipment specialist Eddie (Richard Schiff), photographer Nick (Vince
Vaughn) and a stowaway to rescue Sarah but not only come up against Dinosaurs
but the InGen Corporation who want to further exploit the animals for profit.

Tuesday, 25 September 2012

I was lucky enough to get to a preview screening of Looper a full five days before its UK and USA release and boy was it worth
getting in early. Looper is a smart
and twisting Science Fiction thriller which plays with the ideas and rules of
time travel to create a tense film which leads you down unexpected alleys,
confounding your ideas and expectations.

It’s 2042 and in thirty years time travel will be invented.
Although immediately outlawed the machines are used by the mob to send people
back in time for execution thus destroying all evidence of murder. The people
who carry out the killing are called Loopers. One of these Loopers is Joe
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who conducts his job with the utmost professionalism despite
a few personal issues. One day though to his shock, he looks up at the tarpaulin
ready for the arrival of his next victim when the man who appears in front of
him is the older version of himself (Bruce Willis).

Sunday, 23 September 2012

In a rare switch around audiences in the UK, including
myself are able to see a new release a full two months ahead of our cousins
across the water. The release in the States has been put back for a couple of
reasons including to increase its chance of awards success early next year. If
this film is even in contention for major awards then I’ll eat my shoe
(providing ‘my shoe’ is actually a veggie burger or similar). The film is
nowhere near good enough to be in contention for awards and I have a hard time
calling it good.

Two men, Frankie and Russell (Scoot McNairy – Monstersand Ben Mendelsohn – Animal Kingdom) rip off a card game run
by small time gangster Markie (Ray Liotta) having been tipped off by Johnny
(Vincent Curatola – The Sopranos).
The heat is soon on them though and Frankie, Russell, Johnny and Markie come
under the suspicion local hit man Jackie (Brad Pitt) who also brings down aging
hit man Mickey (James Gandolfini) to help out.

I usually write a review almost immediately after seeing a
film and due to time constraints generally write just one draft. Thankfully I’ve
waited until the following morning to write something about Brick as the extra few hours has allowed
me to work it around in my head and appreciate some of the finer details of the
film which last night I just thought were confusing and dull.

High School student Brendan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a bit
of a loner these days after breaking up with his girlfriend Emily (Emilie de
Ravin) and reporting his friend to the School’s Vice Principle. Brendan
receives an unexpected and garbled phone call from Emily who talks about items
such as a brick and a pin and something about Frisco before abruptly hanging
up. Concerned for her safety Brendan goes about tracking her down but finds he
is too late to help so then sets out to discover what the pin is, who or what
is Frisco and what it all has to do with Emily and a brick.

Saturday, 22 September 2012

A group of five friends are on holiday, hiking and climbing
around the remote mountains of Northern Scotland
when they chance upon a strange noise. Tracking it down they discover a pipe
sticking out of the ground and what appears to be a girl trapped in a box
underground. After setting her free they begin their trek to the nearest town
to report a kidnapping but are chased every step of the way by the shady men
who put the girl in the hole in the first place.

I have a vague recollection of the film’s title and my
girlfriend assures me that we wanted to see it so she borrowed it from a
friend. I wish she hadn’t bothered. The plot is ok but doesn’t go deep enough
and the acting and dialogue seem like they were done by people who understood
the concept but had never actually seen it practiced.

Steven Spielberg’s 1977 Science Fiction drama remains today
one of the most highly decorated and successful Sci-Fi films of all time,
garnering eight Oscar nominations and two wins for cinematography and sound
editing. The film was also nominated for nine BAFTAS and four Golden Globes. I’d
been looking forward to seeing it for a long time and when I noticed it was on
offer on Blu-Ray at HMV I jumped at the chance to buy it. As is often the case
when you hear so much positivity about a film before you see it, Close Encounters didn’t live up to my
expectations but is still a very good film with obvious influences on the last
thirty-five years of Science Fiction.

While investigating a large scale power cut, electrician Roy
Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) has a close encounter with what appears to be a UFO. As
he follows the flashing lights in the sky he comes across others who have
spotted the phenomenon including single mother Jillian (Melinda Dillon) and her
young son Barry. Their claims are met with scepticism but neither can get the
image of a mountain out of their head and when they discover what the image is,
feel uncontrollably drawn towards it. Meanwhile Scientists are working on linguistic
and musical possibilities in case aliens ever make themselves known to
humanity.

Friday, 21 September 2012

When I first saw Fantastic
Mr. Fox at the cinema in 2009 I fell asleep. I think this is the only time
I’ve ever slept through a film and although there were mitigating circumstances
I still feel bad as Wes Anderson is one of my favourite Directors. I’ve loved
all of his pre Mr. Fox films and Moonrise Kingdomis one of my favourite
films of 2012 so far. One of the reasons I fell asleep three years ago was
because I was bored by the film but due to my love of Anderson’s work I felt the need to go back
and reassess it. Unfortunately my first viewing experience was very similar to
my second; the film bored me and I consider it Anderson’s worst film by quite some distance.

Based on Roald Dahl’s book of the same name the plot centres
upon a fox (George Clooney) who despite promising his wife (Meryl Streep) that
he would stop killing farmer’s chickens for a living, can’t resist one final
spree in which he goes for three local farms, run by the meanest farmers
around.

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

My Name is Khan is
a film that comes tantalisingly close to perfection but misses out due to a
mixture of a disappointing third act over simplified view of the world.
Nevertheless it is an excellent film, telling the story of a pre and post-9/11
world through the eyes of Indian’s living in America.

Rizwan Khan (Shahrukh Khan) is a mildly autistic Muslim man
who moves to America after
the death of his mother in India.
There, he meets and falls in love with a Hindu woman Mandira (Kajol) who works
as a successful hairdresser in San
Francisco. The film is split into three very distinct
acts with the first being an often light hearted, cute and funny look at
romance, tolerance and love. Khan says that the western world views history in
two epochs; BC and AD but he would add a third, 9/11. Following 9/11 the lives
of the Indian characters, whether Sikh, Hindu or Muslim change for the worse as
racial profiling, racist attacks and xenophobia takes hold thanks to the
anti-Muslim hysteria of the post-9/11 world. There is an appalling tragedy
around the halfway mark which sets up the third act in which Khan travels America to meet
the President and tell him “My name is Khan and I am not a terrorist”.

Monday, 17 September 2012

The first film in Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ‘death’
trilogy (followed by 21 Grams and Babel) is a
sombre and at times difficult to watch drama set in Mexico City around the themes of class,
loyalty and cruelty. The film is constructed via three interlocking stories
which come together by means of a car crash. The film is non-linear and dips
from one story to the next, slowly building up a picture as to how and where
each character fits into the wider story.

Octavio (Gael Garcia Bernal) uses his brother’s dog to make
money in organised dog fights and is in love with his brother’s pregnant wife
Susana (Vanessa Bauche). One day he and a friend are being chased by crooks
when he crashes his car into another, being driven by the model and actress Valeria
(Goya Toledo) who is in the midst of an affair with Daniel (Alvaro Guerrero), a
married magazine publisher. At the scene of the crash is a down and out, vagrant
man ‘El Chivo’ (Emilio Echevarria) who pushes a scrap metal cart around but
hides a deeply hidden and cheerless past. The three strands only come together
for the car crash scene, colliding like three marbles before being spun into
differing trajectories. The film had me gripped from start to finish but left
me wanting more from at least two of the three strands.

Sunday, 16 September 2012

Once every few years a film will come along that feels as
though it was made just for you. If you’ve seen God Bless America then I hope that you enjoyed it but I must tell
you now, this film was made exclusively for me. Seriously, writer/director
Bobcat Goldthwait must have snuck into my room one night with some sort of
brain scanner and lifted the idea from this movie from my head. I’ve had
numerous conversations with my girlfriend about the wonders of living in a
world where you could just choose people who annoy or anger you to stop
existing. I wouldn’t like to ever kill someone but it would be lovely if there
was some switch that when flicked could just transport all of the mean, cruel,
talentless, waster dickheads to some far away island where they could live out
their lives without being of bother to the people whose lives they make a
misery.

God Bless America takes
some of my darkest thoughts, blows them up and adds some violence and a
coherent story to make a fantastic satire of modern Western Civilisation. Frank
Murdoch (Joel Murray) is a middle aged man who is annoyed by his neighbours and
sickened by the putridness of society. After losing his job and being diagnosed
with a brain tumour he decides enough is enough and travels to Virginia where
he kills an obnoxious teenage girl who was the ‘star’ of a particularly blood
pressure raising episode of My Super
Sweet 16. A classmate of the girl called Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr) sees the
murder and persuades Frank to take her on a killing spree, shooting those who
spread hatred and fear and people who are repellent, abhorrent or
disrespectful.

In typical Woody Allen fashion, Hannah and Her Sisters is a comedy-drama that intertwines several
stories from a large cast. The plot centres around three sisters and their
often interconnecting relationships. Hannah (Mia Farrow) is a successful Actress
and married to financial advisor Elliot (Michael Caine) who in turn is
infatuated with Hannah’s sister, Lee (Barbara Hershey). Lee is in a relationship
with a reclusive artist named Frederick (Max von Sydow) but begins to realise that
she too has feelings for Elliot. The third sister Holly (Dianne Wiest) is an unsuccessful
Actress who is recovering from a cocaine addiction. The final piece of the
jigsaw is a hypochondriac TV Producer and Hannah’s ex-husband Mickey (Woody
Allen) whose philosophy on life changes as the plot progresses due to the
sudden realisation that he will one day die.

The film is set over a two year period but also contains
flashbacks to times before the narrative began to contextualise certain
relationships. Voice over from several of the actors provide the audience with
access to the characters inner thoughts as the merry go round of associations and
affairs slowly unfolds. The film is witty and sometimes interesting but for a
fairly short film, it felt long and sometimes tedious.

Saturday, 15 September 2012

New York City bicycle courier
Wilee (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is at the end of a tough day dodging traffic and
delivering packages across the length and breadth of Manhattan when he gets one last call. Wilee
has to pick up an envelope from a college campus Uptown and deliver it to Chinatown by 7pm but is soon approached by a debt ridden,
crocked cop (Michael Shannon) who tries to take the package off his hands.
Sensing something isn’t right; Wilee takes off at high speed which brings about
a two hour chase across the Borough and ends up involving Wilee’s ex girlfriend
Vanessa (Dania Ramirez), love rival Manny (Wole Parks) and luckless bike cop
(Christopher Place).

For a film about a bike messenger trying to deliver an
envelope, Premium Rush is a lot of
fun. The action is fast paced and well shot and the acting good and sometimes
great. The plot is a little uninvolving but plays second fiddle to the high
speed bike action.

Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee – The Road) is an eleven year old boy living in a small Massachusetts town
famous for hanging a Witch three hundred years ago. Norman is unpopular at home and ridiculed at
school because he believes that he can talk to ghosts. After being approached
by a creepy old man about averting the ‘curse of the Witch’, Norman
accidentally raises a horde of zombies from their graves before enlisting their
help along with that of his sister Courtney (Anna Kendrick), friend Neil (Tucker
Albrizzi), Jock Mitch (Casey Affleck) and school bully Alvin (Christopher Mintz-Plasse)in
sending the Witch back to her grave.

The first of three hotly anticipated horror/comedy/stop
motion kids films we’ll see in the coming weeks and coming three years after Laika’s
success with Coraline, ParaNorman begins with a flourish which
sets it up to be an interesting and funny family film. Unfortunately it runs out
of steam after about fifty minutes when the jokes dry up and the predictable
plot takes over from what had been a fun, film which takes a surprisingly
candid look at death.

In Mega-City One, a dystopian metropolis of 800 million
people which stretches from Boston to WashingtonDC,
justice is dealt out by the Judges of the Justice Department. These lone law
enforcement agents act as Judge, Jury and Executioner in a violent and crime
ridden world. One of these Judges is Dredd (Karl Urban) who takes out a rookie
(Olivia Thirlby) for a final evaluation before a decision is made about making
her a full time Judge. The rookie Anderson has so far been unremarkable in
training but is the most powerful psychic anyone at the Department has seen. On
their first assignment together the two Judges end up in a two hundred story
apartment block the size of a small city which is locked down by ex-prostitute
turned drug baron Ma-Ma (Lena Headley).

I’ve never read a Dredd
comic and was fortunate enough never to see the 1995 Danny Cannon/Sylvester
Stallone adaptation so went in completely cold to the story and characters. I
understood that there was some sort of big deal about not taking Dredd’s helmet
off but that was about it. I also understand that it’s one of the UK’s biggest
and best known comics so it’s with great pleasure to report that in a summer of
incredible comic book adaptations that Dredd
is able to mix it up with the American behemoths and come out the other side as
a really solid action movie which mixes the best of the 1980s with a modern
twist.

Wednesday, 12 September 2012

One of the longest, strangest and best films I’ve ever seen,
Love Exposure is a four hour long
Japanese epic written and directed by acclaimed director Shion Sono which tackles
themes such as love, lust, religion, the family unit, loss and…um… up skirt
photography.

Rather than a plot summery, here is a brief outline of the
five main characters. Hopefully it will put across the magnificent uniqueness
of this fantastic film.

Yu Honda (Takahiro Nishijima) is a seventeen year old Priest’s
son. Following sorrow in his father’s life, the Priest only allows Yu to see
him during confession. Yu ends up desperately searching for Sins to commit so that
he can tell his father and drifts into the world of up skirt photography which
he becomes a master of due to his martial arts skills. After loosing a bet
regarding who has the best photo, his friends dare him to dress up as a woman
and find a girl to kiss. He comes across a young woman called Yoko who he
instantly knows is his ‘Mary’. The only problem is that when they meet, he is
in drag as ‘Miss Scorpion’…

Yoko (Hikari Mitsushima) is the same age as Yu and lives
with her father’s ex lover Kaori. Her father abused her as a child and as a
result she hates all men. One day she is confronted and attacked by a group of
men but saved when a strange woman called Miss Scorpion comes to her rescue.
She falls instantly in love but at the same time is forced to move in with
Kaori’s new lover and his son, Yu who she hates with a passion.Kaori (Makiko Watanabe) is an early middle aged woman who
has spent her life going from one man to another. Along the way she has picked
up the daughter of one of these men, Yoko. The two of them bonded as friends
and now wherever Kaori goes, Yoko follows. Depressed one day, Kaori finds
herself in a Church where she forces herself on the Priest. Tetsu Honda (Atsuro Watabe) is a Priest, widower and father
to Yu. Conflicted between his faith and love of a new woman he starts putting
pressure on his son to Sin before eventually disowning him altogether when it becomes
clear that his Sins have got out of hand. Along with Kaori and Yoko, he is indoctrinated
into a cult called the ZeroChurch by…Aya Koike (Sakura Ando) is a member of the Zero Church Cult
who indoctrinate families into their circle. Like Yoko she too was abused by
her father but instead of escaping, chopped off his penis when he was asleep. Aya
turns her attention to Yu and his family when she sees an opportunity to
indoctrinate them.

An ageing shoeshine, Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms) takes in a
young African boy, Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) after he escapes from a ship’s
cargo container in the French port
of Le Havre. Despite
Marcel’s lack of money and sadness that his wife Arletty (Kati Outinen) is
gravely ill in hospital, he does all he can to reunite the young migrant with
his mother who has settled in London.

Le Havrehad an olden feel to it which permeated
the whole film. The location, costume, cars, and ambience gave the impression
that it was set in the late 1960s or early 1970s. You get the idea that the
world has moved on and forgotten people like Marcel who sits outside the
station waiting to shine shoes, looking down at people’s feet to see mostly
trainers and looking up at faces to see mostly aversion in people’s eyes. You
also get the sense that like many port cities, Le Havre is also a city that has been left
behind. Marcel’s neighbourhood in particular has an almost Dickensian air about
it with a small bakery, grocery shop and narrow streets lined by small, dilapidated
houses. The arrival of a young African boy in to the mix spices up the area and
adds a sense of rejuvenation, bringing the community together.

Tuesday, 11 September 2012

A waiter (Charlie Chaplin) gets into trademark mischief at
work and then goes to a skating rink on his lunch break. There he meets a
pretty girl (Edna Purviance) and the two of them hit it off. The waiter has a
confrontation though with a customer (Eric Campbell) who recognises him from
the restaurant and the two start bickering and fighting while skating. Having
left the rink, the girl invites the waiter to her skating party that night but instead
of revealing his real job he tells her that he is Sir Cecil Seltzer. Later, at
the party, people who had met during the day once again meet up as various
strands of the story come together, resulting in a fast paced chase ending.

I was a little bored by the first half of this film which
was set mainly in a restaurant, but my enjoyment grew as the action turned to
the rink. There Chaplin was able to showcase his remarkable skating skills and
ability to bully his co star Eric Campbell in an ever changing variety of ways.
The second half more than makes up for the lacklustre opening and left me with
a smile on my face if not a laughter induced stomach ache.

Sunday, 9 September 2012

Lawless is a
prohibition era gangster biopic about three brothers from Virginia. Jack Bondurant (Shia LaBeouf) is
the youngest of the brothers and lacks the courage, strength or attitude to
violence that his older brothers Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Howard (Jason Clark) possess.
Forrest especially is a sort of Clint Eastwood figure; strong, silent and
deadly. All three are involved in the moonshine business but their trade comes
under threat when a new Special Deputy (Guy Pearce) arrives from Chicago to put a halt to
their operations.

The film shares traits with Director John Hillcoat’s
previous film The Proposition. Both
focus on brothers outside the law in semi-desolate locations who must battle across a
thin line between right and wrong against corrupt officials. The visually stunning but
run down locations and decaying beauty also help bring to mind Hillcoat’s The Road. This film though is more of a coming of age story as
young Jack Bondurant fights for respect from his brothers and the gangster who
inhabit his world. It is also a tale that blurs the lines between good and
evil, right and wrong with the Bondurant boys becoming anti heroes who the audience
will be routing for from start to finish.

Director Joe Wright’s adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel
Anna Karenina is one of the most
visually stunning and artistically bold films I’ve seen in quite some time.
Wright places most of his plot within the confines of a dilapidated theatre and
has his actors make use of the stage, stalls and behind the scenes areas when
forming the sets of late Tsarist Saint Petersburg. Actors will walk from one
part of the theatre to another with sets and costumes changing around them, all
with the hustle and bustle of both a real theatre and lively city. It’s a
stylistic decision which was probably met with scepticism by studio bosses and
the like but works incredibly well to bring to life the characters which
themselves are so wonderfully written by Tolstoy.

Anna Karenina (Keira Knightly) is married with a son to senior
statesman and a man who is greatly admired and respected in society, Count Alexei
Karenin (Jude Law). Their marriage is typical of the society in which they live
in that it was not for love and he is much older than she is. On a trip to
visit her brother Prince Stepan (Matthew Macfadyen) in Moscow she attracts the attention of a young,
rich and handsome cavalry officer called Count Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
After an infatuation the two fall madly in love but in a closely nit society in
which infidelity is ‘against the rules’, Anna must decide which is more
important? Her standing, child and image or true love.

Saturday, 8 September 2012

Behind the Screen stars
Charlie Chaplin as a stagehand on a movie set. Chaplin is overworked and
underappreciated and his boss (Eric Campbell) spends most of the time asleep,
leaving Chaplin to do the heavy lifting. Meanwhile a young woman (Edna
Purviance) is trying to get her big break as an actress but is turned down so
dresses up as a male stagehand in order to have at least some involvement in
the movies. At the same time the fellow stagehands go on strike for being woken
up by a studio boss and plot their revenge…

This isn’t one of the funniest Mutual shorts but it
certainly has one of the better plots up to this point. It’s multilayered and features side plot
as well as the main narrative. It is also an opportunity to see behind the
scenes of an early movie set in much the same way as His New Job, Chaplin’s first film for Essanay a year earlier. What
the film is most famous for now though is its forthright joke about
homosexuality, a subject which was barely mentioned in cinema for another fifty
years.

Friday, 7 September 2012

I first saw this film when I was about sixteen on one of my
frequent trips to the cinema with friends. When one of them told me about it I
thought it sounded awful. I was used to seeing action and comedy films on a Friday
night and didn’t want to sit through a film about some family and an old man
dying. In the end the film completely shocked me and helped to introduce me to
the joys of cinema, seeing passed the Friday night popcorn movies to which I
was accustomed. It was also the first of many Wes Anderson films that I fell in
love with. I often site Martin Scorsese’s Taxi
Driver as being the film which opened my eyes to cinema but thinking about
it now, this film did the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent, two years
earlier.

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) is thrown out of his house by
his wife (Anjelica Houston) before their three genius children (Ben Stiller,
Luke Wilson, Gwyneth Paltrow) reach their teens. This has a far reaching impact
on all of their lives and none of the three grow up to fully reach their
potential. Playwrite Margot (Paltrow) stops writing, Tennis champion Richie (Wilson) retires ages
twenty-six after a breakdown and business guru Chas (Stiller) becomes overly
protective of his own children following the untimely death of his wife. After
years of being out of the picture, Royal decides he wants to become reacquainted
with his quirky children but ends up going about it in all the wrong ways.

Wednesday, 5 September 2012

Charlie Chaplin’s sixth film for Mutual is one with very
high highs and disappointingly low lows. It features a scenario and story which
doesn’t really go anywhere but also features several moments of slapstick that
are amongst his best to date.

Chaplin stars as a pawnshop assistant and gets in a long
running fight with fellow employee John Rand. Typically inept at his job,
Chaplin is eventually fired only to be taken back on straight away after his
boss Henry Bergman has a change of heart. Meanwhile Chaplin’s attentions are
drawn to Bergman’s daughter Edna Purviance who is busy baking in the back of
the shop. Trouble appears late on as a thief, Eric Campbell enters the shop
intent on taking it for everything it’s got.

Tuesday, 4 September 2012

In 1966 professional boxer Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter was
arrested for triple homicide and subsequently found guilty and sentenced to
three life sentences for the crime. Despite always maintaining his innocence a
second trial also came to the same guilty conclusion. Biopic The Hurricane tells the story of Carter’s
fight to clear his name with the help of some unlikely accomplices in the form
of three Canadians and the teenager from Brooklyn
who they’d taken in. Denzel Washington stars as Hurricane Carter in one of the
performances of his career in a film which portrays the hatred, racism and
injustice that the human race is unfortunately capable of dishing out to one of
its own.

The film uses a non linear timeline to flash back and
forward from Carter’s early years, through his boxing career, incarceration and
the eventual meeting between himself and Lesra Martin (Vicellous Reon Shannon),
Lisa Peters (Deborah Kara Unger), Sam Chaiton (Liev Schreiber) and Terry
Swinton (John Hannah) who all fought tirelessly to prove his innocence. The
bulk of the film concentrates on the period from Carter’s arrest in 1966 to the
mid 1980s though. Although it is far from a perfect film and inaccuracies have
been levelled towards it, the incredible story and Washington’s performance make this a film
which I’d recommend to anyone.

Monday, 3 September 2012

Charlie Chaplin’s fifth film for Mutual is a somewhat simpler
film than its immediate predecessors The
Vagabond and One A.M. and is more
reminiscent of his Essanay work, albeit it more sophisticated and slightly
funnier. Chaplin plays an inept Tailor’s assistant who gets fired for burning a
Count’s trousers. His boss (Eric Campbell) finds an invitation to a party at
the house of Miss Moneybags (Edna Purviance) and decides to impersonate the
rich Count in order to marry the attractive, rich girl. Chaplin is also at the
party having snuck in through the back door and beats Campbell to the impersonation. All hell
breaks lose though when the real Count arrives, along with the Police to chase
out the imposters.

The Count features
lots of funny moments but lacks the knockout blow of the likes of One A.M. or The Bank. It’s testament to the quality of Chaplin’s Mutual films
that I felt disappointed by The Count even
though it is far superior to a lot of his Essanay films.

Sunday, 2 September 2012

Alfred Hitchcock’s tale of mistaken identity and Cold War
spying has gone down as one of the most highly regarded films in history. It
was nominated for three Academy Awards, is ranked at 55 in the AFI’s 100 Years
100 Movies ranking and holds an 8.6/10 on IMDb. Carey Grant plays Roger
Thornhill, an Ad Man who is abducted by James Mason’s ‘Townsend’ character
under the suspicion that he is the spy George Kaplan. Thornhill is chased
across America from New York to South Dakota
via Chicago by
the Police and Townsend, meeting the seductive Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint)
along the way. In this next sentence I’m going to say something that will
probably draw a lot of negative comments along the lines of “You don’t know
what you’re talking about” or “You mustn’t have been watching it right” but not
only do I not think North by Northwest is
a great film but I personally believe it is the worst Alfred Hitchcock film I’ve
seen so far. The film undoubtedly features some great stand out moments but as
far as suspense and thrills go, this one left me cold.

Lars Lindstrom (Ryan Gosling) is a shy and retiring man
living in the garage of his brother and sister-in-law’s house. He frequently
tries to avoid contact with his friends, co-workers and family and when he does
have to interact with others, conversation is stilted before Lars is able to
escape. Despite the obvious interest of colleague Margo (Kelli Garner) Lars has
no girlfriend so his brother Gus (Paul Schneider) and Sister-in-law Karin (Emily
Mortimer) are shocked when one day Lars appears at their front door with the
news that he has a house guest; a wheelchair bound, half Brazilian, half Danish
missionary whom he met on the internet. Gus and Karin are initially overjoyed
that Lars has met something but are soon startled to discover that ‘Bianca’ is
in fact a Real Doll sex doll whom
Lars is convinced is a real person. Worried about his mental health his family
and friends all rally around Lars and attempt to welcome Bianca into the
community while trying to get Lars the help that he so obviously needs.

The term rollercoaster ride of emotions is a little bit
tacky and overused but it applies here. Every few seconds while watching this
film I went from laugh out loud laughter to shock to sadness and back again.
The film manages to be incredibly uplifting, sad and funny, often at the same
time and features some great acting and an astonishing and original script.

Saturday, 1 September 2012

A Norwegian helicopter is seen chasing a dog through the
Antarctic until it reaches a US Research Station. A man emerges and tries
killing the dog but is himself shot by one of the researchers. Eager to
understand what drove the man to such lengths, helicopter pilot MacReady (Kurt
Russell) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) head off to find out what is going on
in the Norwegian station. When they arrive they find death and destruction but
discover that the Norwegians had discovered a craft and frozen body deep inside
the ice. The US
team take the body back to their base for an autopsy but soon discover it isn’t
a dead body but a thawed out creature that is capable of killing and metamorphosing into anyone with which it
has contact. Not knowing who amongst them is still human the team enters into a
climate of fear and mistrust and battle to stop The Thing from reaching civilization.

This film was recommended
to me by a friend a few months ago at the same time as I watched The Fly. I liked that film but The Thing is on a whole different level.
I enjoyed it from start to finish and although never scared, thought it was a
brilliant thriller with wonderful creature design.